Communication for Development

Communication for development (C4D) makes a broad contribution to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), particularly the goals outlined in the Country Programme interventions. The main purpose of C4D is to ensure behaviours and social norms that promote the wellbeing of children and their families.

The mid-term review of the UNICEF Medium-term Strategic Plan found that 38 of the 52 medium-term strategic results depend on the development of behaviours for social change. As a consequence, C4D has been incorporated into the national programmes as an important cross-cutting strategy to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

In the current Cooperation Programme, C4D has promoted the development of individual behaviours and social actions aimed at children, adolescents, young people, women, media professionals, religious leaders and community-level participants to strengthen joint work aimed at placing children and adolescents at the centre of the public agenda.

The communication strategies to develop behaviours for social change allow the voices and opinions of adolescents, youth, women and communities to be incorporated into policies and national action plans. C4D is organizationally accepted as the main area for incorporating and disseminating messages through the programmes and for the more extensive implementation of the rights of children, adolescents and women.

The C4D strategies include four intervention areas: advocacy, social mobilization, community participation and programme communication. There is a baseline and the strategies’ impact has been monitored in 75 sentinel sites in municipalities of the country’s Caribbean Coast, northern and Pacific regions.

The C4D strategies are expected to be coordinated at the highest government and UNICEF levels. This commitment to C4D at the top government level is a prerequisite for the successful implementation of the communication strategies of each programme component.

The Ministry of Health, Ministry of the Family, Adolescents and Children, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Labour, state counterparts and social organizations must establish a dynamic that brings together all of the partners in communication for the development of behaviours and social changes in each programme component.